As a hypnotherapist, NLP trainer, and energy worker, I see many clients looking to relieve stress by pleasing other people.
One of my clients, Mary, was desperately looking for stress relief, but all she could see was more and more stress. So I asked Mary what she did during the week to find this elusive stress reliever.
Here are their responses:
I simply gave Mary the answers, to give her a different perspective on stress relief.
1. She visited a friend in the hospital to relieve stress instead of going to her usual weekly meditation class.
2. I bought a gym membership hoping to relieve stress by making other people happy.
3. When you receive genuine compliments instead of enjoying the stress relief of the compliment, you have a hard time accepting them.
4. Ignoring stress relief by not listening to your children.
5. Ignore stress relief by not listening to your partner.
6. Not allowing yourself to enjoy stress relief by trying to keep your kids from growing up and getting a few bruises (always wanting to protect them).
7. Giving feedback on stress relief when it was not requested.
In each of the above situations, Maria was doing something to please someone. Mary couldn’t believe what she saw on paper (in fact, I wrote my interpretation of her responses to which Mary agreed).
You’ve probably heard that you need to do things to please yourself and enjoy stress relief. However, this concept has the stigma attached to it that pleasing yourself is selfish.
Let’s examine this misconception for a moment. In Mary’s case, I’m going to use the first thing she said she did to relieve stress.
She visited a friend in the hospital to relieve stress instead of going to her usual weekly meditation class.
Now Maria could have gone to the hospital another day and visited her friend. I checked with Mary a week later and her friend is still alive and making progress. However, when Mary left the hospital, she felt exhausted. Mary goes home with her children and her partner feeling tired and she doesn’t have time for them because she is exhausted.
It makes your partner and children wonder how you have so much time for your friend and so little time for them (your family).
In order not to be attached to the stigma of being selfish, Mary followed her understanding (stigma of being selfish) and went to the hospital to find relief from stress. So what are the consequences of it?
Mary came home exhausted instead of relaxed. If she had attended her meditation class, she would have gone home relaxed and prepared to deal with her family.
Mary had no time for her family and the feeling of stress relief.
Mary has no time for herself or stress relief.
Mary now understands the chaos she has been creating by trying to relieve stress by pleasing other people for most of her life.
So what is the moral of the story?
You will find that you are truly happy when you first please yourself. When you feel good about yourself and your idiosyncrasies and someone says they don’t like some aspect of you, it doesn’t matter because you’ve already accepted yourself as you are, with all your unique gifts.